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Wednesday, 19 September 2012

Countdown to Skyfall - It started here

The Origin of James Bond 007

In a couple of months we will have a new James Bond movie, as the film
franchise celebrates fifty years, but to get to the real 007 you must
return to Ian Fleming's original canon.

“The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in
the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling – a compost
of greed and fear and nervous tension – becomes unbearable and the
senses awake and revolt from it.”

They are the opening words from Ian
Fleming’s 1953 debut novel, Casino Royale – the book that introduced
James Bond 007 to the world. I know this book, so well, have read it so many times that I can write
the passage above from memory.

Raymond Benson noted, in his excellent James Bond Bedside Companion (1984) that Bond is entirely humourless
in this first novel, and for the most part I would go along with that
but I wouldn’t say the character was entirely without humour. There is
much resigned wit over being partnered with a woman and Bond even laughs
at his own pretentiousness when ordering dinner. And in the latter
sections of the book Bond is overly romantic when falling in love with
Vesper, but for the most part Bond is a stiff no-nonsense type, which
perfectly suits the seriousness of the story. And it is a serious story –
Fleming set out to write the best spy thriller possible – and there is
no time for frivolity.

A highly ingenious plot
sees Bond trying to out gamble Russian agent, Le Chiffre who is trying
to win back the funds he has misappropriated from his paymasters in
order to finance a string of failed brothels. It is felt that if Le
Chiffre fails to recover the monies he has embezzled his ruination will
bring about the collapse of a Communist controlled trade union in
Alsace, something that would be highly desirable to the British,
Americans and French governments.

Fleming’s introduction
of Bond at the Casino is masterful and shows him to live the kind of
high life that was out of the grasp of most people. During the time the
book was written foreign travel was attainable to only the wealthiest
and the degree of description the author gives to the locales would have
seemed incredibly exotic to the average reader.
Fleming is heavy on detail –
offering the minutiae of food, car engines, locations
and weaponry. However the author manages to makes these passages
exciting and interesting – he even fills several chapters explaining the
rather complicated card game and yet the story moves like an express
train. Fleming would pull off similar tricks several times in the
series, most notably with the thrilling Golf duel in Goldfinger. Raymond
Benson, again in his James Bond Bedside Companion, called this "the
Fleming Sweep" and it is a term we will adopt for this article.

“Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a
measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice cold and then
add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?”

Did
Fleming consider a series of books when he wrote this one? I feel he
did, several passages seem to suggest he is setting up character traits
in Bond that will be used later. At one point Bond decides to resign
from the service, telling Mathis while lying battered in a hospital bed:
“History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and
villains keep on changing parts.”

To which Mathis replies, “Don’t let me down and become human yourself. We would loose such a wonderful machine.”

Bond,
by the point, has had enough – his body has been beaten almost to
destruction and his mind has taken a similar treatment. Le Chiffre is
dead, killed by a SMERSH assassin, and it all seems to have been so
useless to Bond. He contemplates marriage to Vesper and a normal life,
the kind of life the average person leads. But all this is not to be and
when Vesper is revealed to have been a double agent. His heart hardens
and he weeps real tears as he informs his people that she was a traitor –
“Yes, dammit, I said, ‘was’. The bitch is dead now.”

Casino
Royale is one of the best in the series (personally it’s my favorite)
and the book sets up the shadowy world in which James Bond operates. The
novel details the first meeting between Bond and Felix Leiter and we
are told that Bond uses a .38 Police Positive. With this book Fleming
provided wish fulfilment for many people including a soon to be
President Kennedy whom it later emerged was a huge fan of Mr Fleming.

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GARY DOBBS/JACK MARTIN

Actor and novelist. As an actor I have appeared in Doctor Who, Torchwood, Gavin and Stacey, Moonmonkeys, Larkrise to Candleford, The Reverend, The Risen.
As a writer I write westerns for the Black Horse Western imprint using the name Jack Martin. Under my own name I am responsible for several novels including the popular Granny Smith series. And using the name Vincent Stark I have written some pretty disturbing stuff.

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